From Humble Beginnings, To Glory, To Potential Disaster: The Future Of The Sony Playstation

The history of the Playstation is a fascinating read, full of intrigue and drama. In 1994, when the first Playstation was released, it was not just another competitor to Sega Genesis and Nintendo 64, it was a change to the gaming world. It became the first console to sell over a 100 million units worldwide and it did that in under 10 years. The Playstation 2, released in 2000, takes the prize for best selling console with over 150 million sold in under 6 years. The PS3 arrived in 2006 and has sold about 70 million units, an excellent figure considering it competed with Xbox 360. Every six years, Sony has released a new console and in 2012, players once again begin to talk of what is surely coming: Playstation 4.

I remember talking to a guy once that was part of the group that tested the boomerang controllers. He thought they were amazing. Apparently it had different vibration points throughout the controller which acted as a kind of 3d vibration feedback. In the example he gave me, he said you could clearly tell in FPS type games just via the vibration alone which direction you were being hit from and from the front or the back.

But as we now know, Sony was stuck in the middle of a lawsuit over vibration control which Microsoft settled rather than fight (buying 10% of the company in question). Obviously the boomerang controllers couldn't have launched while the lawsuit was still ongoing, so we got the cheap feeling Sixasses controller while Sony lied and said "Oh! Gamers don't want vibration. It'll wreck motion controls." not "We can't. We're fighting patent disputes in court."

It's too bad. Based on what this guy told me back in the day, I would have liked to have given them a try.